


Memento Mori

by gremlinny



Category: The Grinning Man - Philips & Teitler/Grose & Morris & Philips & Teitler/Grose
Genre: Gen, Mentions of Death, mentions of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27141490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gremlinny/pseuds/gremlinny
Summary: One day, there are empty places between the paintings on the wall in the palace, places that remain vacant for twenty years.Until Grinpayne has his title reinstated by the Queen. Then, In the middle of the night, tapestries and picture frames are replaced, hung in their rightful places, as if they had always been there.Grinpayne notices his father’s portrait first.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Memento Mori

**Author's Note:**

> Ann is black, Hazlitt’s white, Grinpayne is mixed. just to clarify.

It doesn’t happen with any big ceremony. One day, there are empty places between the paintings on the wall, places that remain vacant for twenty years. In all that time, no one has dared to put any other pictures in to fill the gaps— a fear that whatever takes its place would bring about the fulfillment of the prophecy.

Anything in the palace pertaining to the Trelaws was swiftly hidden away. Not destroyed, never destroyed, because if you go around making ghosts of everything then you’re bound to get haunted. Rooms were left vacant, paintings and tapestries stored away, servants reassigned and sworn to secrecy.

Over the span of twenty years, a fine layer of dust has settled over everything the Trelaws used to be. Mentions of their rebellion were kept under wraps like an old wound.

Until Grinpayne has his title reinstated by the Queen, unaware that he was ever of noble stock. 

It happens without any big ceremony. One day, the walls are bare where paintings should be. In the middle of the night, tapestries and portraits are replaced, hung in their rightful places, as if they had always been there.

Grinpayne notices his father’s portrait first. He’d long forgotten what the man looked like, but he recognizes it anyway. Hazlitt stands with his head tilted upwards at an angle, showing the squareness of his jaw. Reddish-brown hair, the stubbly beginnings of a beard, dark brown eyes fixed forward as if to stare at the viewer—at Grinpayne. Having a portrait painted is a long and tedious process, but evidently Hazlitt took it in stride, because the artist had painted the faintest of smiles on his face. His sword is in its scabbard at his side, the exact same sword and scabbard that’s now on Grinpayne’s hip. 

He stares at the painting, taking in features, memorizing details. Pale skin, the slope of his brow, the broadness of his shoulders, the way his nose is just a bit crooked. 

Hazlitt looks exactly like a Lord should. But it’s hard for Grinpayne to imagine this man as his father. He doesn’t remember ever having a father—he doesn’t remember his mother, either, but he knows for a fact that he had one. Even Ursus, who’d taken him in all that time ago, who raised him, who he calls “Father”, isn’t viewed in quite the same way. Their relationship is a loving one, but there’s always been the slightest bit of strain to it from the very beginning, something Grinpayne can’t pin down. 

His Father, in the portrait, seems untouchable, unreachable through high status and death and so many layers of oil paint and varnish. Grinpayne has that same status, now, and he’ll have his own portrait in time, but Hazlitt is a standard he can’t live up to. 

The blade of Bilboa hangs heavily at his side as he continues down the hall of portraits, eyes scanning over the lords and ladies and dukes and duchesses, peers of the realm from so many years ago. 

The next one to catch his eye makes him stop in his tracks. A face he almost remembers, however distantly, resurfacing from the depths of his mind and rushing forth fast enough to make his head spin. 

His mother.

She’s just as regal as her husband, in the same pose, and she’s  _ right there.  _ His mother, the woman he’d sworn to remember but had unwittingly forgotten, secured in place by an ornate frame on the wall. The sight of her, even as a painting, is an unbelievable comfort. He stares at the canvas longer than he had with his father’s. 

Ann Trelaw stares back at him, unblinking, unmoving, unchanged in twenty years. How old would she be, now? How old would his father be? In their forties, at the very least, or fifty-something at the oldest. 

He can imagine them with graying hair and crow’s feet at the corners of their eyes. Part of him wants to believe that if he closes his eyes and concentrates hard enough, then they’ll step out of the paintings and greet him warmly, as if they’d only been gone a short time. 

He opens his eyes.

She is nothing more than an image on canvas, and Grinpayne’s heart aches in his chest.

Next to hers is another painting, taller and wider, with Ann and Hazlitt standing next to eachother, pressed close.

At first, he wonders why they’re so close together, until he notices the toddler on Ann’s hip, with Hazlitt’s hand on their shoulder to help keep the child still.

Grinpayne doesn’t remember this child, and doubt creeps in. Did his parents have another baby before they had him? Are there siblings he’d forgotten about, hanged alongside their father or drowned with their mother? The child can’t be much older than four, and he can’t bear the thought of what might have happened to them at such a young age.

Inspecting the painting closer, his stomach twists into knots as the realization dawns on him.

The child is him. Gwynplaine Trelaw-Clancharlie, four and a half years old, held by his parents and smiling broadly. He takes after his mother more than his father, with the same dark curls and warm brown skin, although he’s somewhat lighter than Ann. The cleft at his chin is subtle—he hadn’t grown out of the baby fat quite yet, still pudgy as children should be. 

Grinpayne can’t seem to make a connection between himself and the child in the portrait. He knows it’s him, it’s obvious now, but he can’t wrap his head around it. This child is small and round and his face is still chubby and soft. His smile is a willing expression of delight as he clings to his parents. 

Now, Grinpayne is all sharp angles and tall stature. He’s got a fair amount of muscle, but his ribs show through his skin. His joints easily dislocate for contortionist acts, but there are times when they slip out without intention, and it’s a great deal of trouble to put them back in place. 

The wound at his face was carved so harshly that it never healed, and even now he can feel blood soaking through the bandages, fresh wet scarlet painting a smile into the gauze. 

He can’t remember a time when he was whole, when he was small and unmarred. The earliest part of his childhood he can remember is waking up in Ursus’ cart with a profound feeling of having lost something important. 

Grinpayne reaches up and gingerly touches the face of the child in the portrait, trying to process the fact that they're the same person.

Freckles over his cheeks and nose, brown skin, thick eyebrows, dark hair with one stubborn curl hanging in his face. The way his big ears stick out from the sides of his little head like pitcher handles, his brown eyes wide and curious.

He’s almost tempted to dig his fingers into the canvas, to ruin it and rip it so that the face of the little boy in the painting matches with what he’s grown into. For twenty years, he’s been missing half of his face, and it feels wrong that there’s evidence of him ever being normal. This version of himself feels like some kind of betrayal. He wants to reach in and ask himself,  _ How could you be so whole and innocent, then turn into me? How could you do that to us? _

His thumb lingers over the mouth of his child self, so that just the top part of his face is visible, and it’s only then that he feels they’re the same. 

He pulls his hand away from the painting, looking at the portrait of the three of them, and he can’t put a name to his emotions anymore. Everything’s swirling around inside of him in a flurry of confusion, and he has to take a step back, to look away from the painting. 

Grinpayne breathes in deeply, and returns his attention to the portrait after a moment. 

Is he allowed to mourn a family he doesn’t remember having? Can he grieve for a version of himself he doesn’t feel connected to? They were family, but he doesn’t know the people in these paintings. They’re strangers, this couple with their child. 

He wishes the walls were still bare.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I’m castledock on tumblr


End file.
